Location Strategy Chartbook 07.18.2026

June’s Monthly Treasury Statement contained some unwelcome news for the head of the department that produced it.

The report showed the federal deficit growing again, making Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s avowed goal of getting the shortfall down to 3% of gross domestic product before the end of Trump’s second term (it’s currently running at about 5.7% of GDP) look more and more like a pipe dream.

The U.S. trade deficit rose to $77.6 billion in May, up 42.2% from April, its largest deficit since March 2025, when businesses were bulking up imports to get ahead of broad-based tariffs on foreign goods announced by the Trump administration.

This time around, the month-to-month increase in the deficit was due both to higher imports and lower exports. Imports grew by 3.3% in the month to $395.3 billion, while exports fell by 3.2% to $10.5 billion, the first monthly decline this year. On a year-over-year basis, imports grew by 13.3% in May, faster than exports, which grew by 12.6%.

WSJ: Expect pump prices to remain high even if oil prices give back their recent gains. Refining capacity is strained, and fuel markets don’t have much of a buffer.

An unprecedented transfer of wealth in the coming decades is likely to disproportionately benefit America’s most affluent families, boosting their fortunes by trillions of dollars, a new report from Visa says. Almost three quarters of those expected to inherit from Baby Boomers are already in the top 10% by household net worth.

NFP, an AON company 2026 Retirement Trends Report : Confidence in retirement preparedness remains low, with more than two-thirds of American workers unsure they will be able to retire comfortably. That uncertainty is shaping how they engage with planning, while immediate financial pressures are limiting their ability to act. For many, essential expenses like housing, car payments, healthcare and everyday costs are taking precedence over long-term retirement savings.

For the first time since the start of the year, small business profitability growth turned positive in June. Revenues are growing, but not fast enough to fully offset ongoing cost pressures, which has led to a prolonged period - more than six years - of small business owners planning to raise prices to combat falling sales expectations. Revenues have not been keeping up with costs.
• Small firms are also contending with persistently higher interest rates. Still, rates have come down from their 2022 peak, and Bank of America loan payment growth per small business client has increased, suggesting modest demand although capex plans for small firms remains muted.
• At the same time, small business hiring activity improved in June from earlier this year. This was especially true for small finance, insurance and real estate firms, suggesting AI hasn't affected job demand in white collar industries.

The capital markets landscape in Dallas-Fort Worth’s office market is marked by more for-sale listings.

Even as the broader landscape remains fractured, the market's durable demand in North Texas and a dearth of new supply make for rising rent growth and potential for improving net operating income.

Sales activity continues to rise for office buildings. In the year ending the second quarter, total volume was $8.1 billion, almost double that of the same period last year. The last 12 months have been marked by several trophy buildings, including The Link at Uptown, while some owners face refinancing pressure in underoccupied, uncompetitive buildings.

Big landlords are being nudged to pour cash into the build-to-rent sector instead. This means taking on development risk and constructing entire rental neighborhoods from scratch. The benefit of constructing whole rental communities in one area is that they are much cheaper to maintain than homes that are scattered across dispersed neighborhoods.

Returns on build-to-rent investments don’t look high enough to compensate for the risk. The average cap rate—a measure of the operating income these rental neighborhoods generate as a percentage of the value of the assets—on developments is around 5% to 5.5% according to CBRE. With yields on 10-year Treasury bonds currently around 4.6%, that isn’t hugely appealing for an increasingly sensitive sector.

Investors also have fewer options to sell build-to-rent assets than scattered-site housing. As single-family homes are in demand, investors can unload individual units to regular buyers at prices that are 10% to 20% higher than what an investor would be willing to pay. Build-to-rent communities are hard—or impossible under some zoning rules—to sell off individually to consumers this way.

$112.5 million purchase of a development in west Phoenix, marking the priciest such transaction on record for the state of Arizona.

Golden Horizon Enterprises acquired the Bungalows on Camelback, a 334-unit development that opened in 2024; the developer and seller is Scottsdale-based Cavan Cos.

The transaction set a high watermark for build to rent sales across the country so far through 2026 and sets a record for Arizona, topping the $95.75 million sale of Bella Encanta in Mesa in April 2025.

Institutional investors like Stockbridge Capital Group, Fundrise and Blackstone have made multiple acquisitions for build to rent developments totaling more than 100 units since the start of 2020.

Phoenix leads the nation in inventory that's build to rent. The 334-unit Bungalows on Camelback is part of some 33,000 existing properties that are build to rent for-rent townhouses across Phoenix, with another 2,200 in the development pipeline.

June housing starts (blue) +19% m/m vs. +11.2% est. & -15.2% prior; building permits (orange) -3% vs. +0.1% est. & -0.9% prior